


MIDNIGHT FALLING

by Vail



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, F/M, Ficlet, Hurt/Comfort, Mass Effect 3 spoilers, Post-Game, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-31
Updated: 2012-03-31
Packaged: 2017-11-02 20:22:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/372993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vail/pseuds/Vail
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sky is a mass of dark smoke, the edges of it colored the same red as dying suns - but Commander Shepard is not dead, just lost amidst the crumbled remains of London. Elsewhere, Kaidan Alenko works with the ticking of a clock loud in his ears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	MIDNIGHT FALLING

**Author's Note:**

> Written for brittwidgeon on Tumblr, with her custom Shepard. My knowledge of Mass Effect comes from her and hours on Youtube/ME Wikia. Please correct any big mistakes you see!

She can’t see the stars -

Which bothers her, even as she lies crumpled in the rubble of London. Her armor is crushed, half-melted into her skin. Blood swells in her mouth and runs down the side of her face. The sky is a mass of dark smoke, the edges of it colored the same red as dying suns.

But she is not dead.

Above her, Big Ben is stuck at a quarter before 12. She closes her eyes and hears her mother’s voice, a distant, faded thing – “ _When the clock struck midnight, the spell broke, and Cinderella’s gown turned to rags once more.”_

Shepard’s luck is almost at its end.

(She can’t move enough to cross her fingers, but she wishes the rest of it all to Kaidan, however far away he may be. Let him be alive. Let her have made the right choice.)

—

“Missing,” they tell him, but everyone knows they mean  _dead_.

—

Kaidan won’t stop looking.

He’s out every day, despite the orders to stay off his leg which was injured in the fight. He pulls survivors from the wreckages and lifts heavy plates of metal off them with biotics. Something inside him winces every time the person underneath is not Shepard, but he pretends that it doesn’t and goes on.

She’s still marked as MIA, but he is running out of time.

—

“How’s the woman they dragged out yesterday?”

“We had to scrape the suit from her, it was melted in so bad. Gods know what happened to her out there. Fractured collar bone, broken ribs, arm and leg, third degree burns and probably a concussion. She hasn’t woken up.”

“Might be for the best, in that shape. Still don’t know who she is?”

“No ID. The armor was too messed up for us to see a squad number or anything.” 

“Well, keep at it. Let me know if anything changes, or we find out who she is. I’m sure there’s someone out there that’d like to know she’s alive.”

—

Shepard wakes up in a tent. The air is thick and sour, a strange mix of the chemicals she associates with hospitals and heavy smoke.

“Doctor? I - I think she’s waking up.”

She tries to lift her head - the pain shoots through her like a spear of lightning down her spine, and she drops it instantly. “Wh-” Her throat is dry, and the young man sitting at her bedside hesitantly sticks a cup of water next to her face. She tilts her head and drinks gratefully. 

“Thank you,” she manages; her voice still a little raspy. “Where-?”

“London,” he informs her, putting the cup on a nearby stool. “You’ve been out for days; the doctor was beginning to think you might not wake up. How are you feeling?”

“Like I got stomped on by a Reaper.”

“The injuries you came in with made it look like you did,” the doctor commented dryly, entering the tent. “We’ll have you taken to a proper hospital as soon as I do a quick check up. I didn’t want to risk moving you in case you had a serious head injury. Can you tell me what year it is?”

“2186 CE,” she says slowly, her mouth twisting in confusion. “The Reapers…we…the Crucible…” 

The doctor placed a light hand on her shoulder. “Slow down, we can keep it simple. Can you tell me your name and squad? We’re supposed to be reporting the survivors as we can.”

She offers, “…Brittany,” but somehow knows that’s not what he needs. “Shepard…Commander on the Normandy. Kaidan…” Shepard pauses, thinking over the name and why - 

“Commander on the - _Commander Shepard_? Are you telling me you’re Commander Shepard?” The doctor gaped, staring at her with wide eyes. “You’ve been reported missing for over a week, the Alliance has been asking everywhere - We’ll move you right away, the hospital will just have to clear a bed - “

“Kaidan?” Shepard asks in whisper, as word begins to spread and people move around her frantically. “Where’s Kaidan?” 

Nobody answers her.

—

“Shepard,  _Shepard_.”

He’s clutching her hand like a lifeline when she comes to again, the hurt a little more bearable, still swathed in white bandages.

“…Kaidan?” 

“Brittany,” he breathes, standing up. The lines around his eyes are dark from lack of sleep, eyes that roam over the burns edging out from beneath their wrappings on her shoulders, the singed eyebrow, the angry scar slashing down from her neck to her breasts and under the blankets. His free hand brushes over it, tracing it up to the nape of her neck and curling into her short, blonde hair. He presses a kiss to her forehead.

_“The prince looked at Cinderella, who did not have her fairy godmother’s magic anymore. Her hair was loosely tied back, without the ropes of pearls and gems that she had worn the night before, and her face was smudged with soot and dirt. He saw something the others did not, and offered the glass slipper to her bare and blistered foot.”_

“You don’t get to run off without me again,” he tells her. “I’m going with you, whether you like it or not, wherever it is - I can’t, ” Kaidan’s voice breaks, “Shepard, Brittany, I  _can’t lose you again_.”

The plain white clock on the wall marks the time as four in the morning, a little too early for dawn. The light in the room is all artificial. 

“…It’s after midnight.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I just - you won’t. Lose me again. I promise.” 

“You promised last time too.” 

The pain isn’t as sharp as before, less like electricity and more like a deep ache in her bones, in the hollow of her chest, down the line of her spine that is possible more metal than cartilage now. She pulls herself up, ever so slowly, and presses her chapped lips to Kaidan’s mouth. 

“Sealed with a kiss,” Shepard murmurs. “We stay together. I love you, Kaidan, and I almost - ”  _Lost you too_ , but she doesn’t say that. What happened at the Citadel will be her last secret - that she didn’t choose for the galaxy, but for him.

Not happily ever after, but something for the present.

“Shepard? Are you feeling alright?”

“…I’m fine.  _We’ll_  be fine.”

 


End file.
